On the recordNovember 17, 2021
I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Madam Speaker, my colleague just referenced the phrase ``any other environment'' that there would be some consequences. Well, this is not any other environment. This is the House of Representatives. We have constituents who elect us, send us to Washington to represent them, engage in debate, engage in often heated discussions with each other. This is not the same. One of the fundamental problems we have as a Chamber right now is that it is being treated that way. It is being treated that way by the majority. Shutting down our ability to engage in actual debate; shutting down our ability to move about the Chamber wearing these masks; talking about right now with CMS and what is happening, as early as December 5, doctors in San Antonio, Texas, which I represent, being unable to perform their tasks as doctors, potentially resulting in loss of life and being able to carry out their livelihoods through vaccine mandates. We have got untold harm occurring in South Texas with bodies in body trailers. We have got people dying. We have got actual consequences from these vaccine mandates causing people to lose their jobs, whether it is OSHA-related, private-sector jobs, military, defense, border patrol; all this happening as we head towards December 3 with a potential government shutdown. And this is what we are having an actual debate on the floor of the House for.…





